Team Herald
DONA PAULA: Gurmeet Virdi and co-driver Kirpal Singh Tung of Gerrari Offroaders Chandigarh emerged as the Force Gurkha RFC India 2017 Overall Champions with a total score of 2019 points out of 2600, on Sunday.
Gurmeet successfully managed to defend his title and is the only Indian driver till date who has won the country’s toughest off-road motorsport competition since its launch in 2014.
The overall second position was held by Jagat Nanjappa (co-driver Chetan Changappa) of Team V5 Offroaders from Coorg with 1906 points. In an interesting turn of events, Gerrari Offroaders’ Sanbir Singh Dhaliwal (co-driver Gurpartap Singh) overtook Siddartha Santosh in the final moments to clinch third spot on the podium with 1685 points.
Gurmeet was elated on winning the country’s most coveted offroad motorsport trophy for the second time in a row. He said, “I am overjoyed that we’ve successfully managed to defend our title. It was a pretty tough competition, the positions kept on jumbling throughout, but we are happy that we came out victorious. There was no pressure throughout the event but the last stage of the competition gave me some serious chills as the competition was really close. It’s the first time that our club Gerrari Offroaders has clinched two positions on the podium in RFC India. Overall, I couldn’t have been happier.”
As the top Indian driver of the competition, Gurmeet will get monetary benefits of up to $8,000. This includes the automatic fully paid-for entry in the RFC 2017 Grand Final in Malaysia that is worth $3,900 and the travel expenses amounting to around $1,100. Moreover, Cougar Motorsport will contribute up to $3,000 towards the cost of arranging the competition vehicle for participating in the Mother Event in Malaysia, to be held at the end of the year.
This is the second consecutive year when veteran Indian rallyist Jagat Nanjappa competed in RFC India. He is satisfied about the fact that he has risen up from last year’s eighth position to the second position this year. He said, “This year it turned out to be a brilliant competition amongst the top three vehicles throughout the event.
“The previous year’s winner has defended his title with full force and I congratulate him on his superb performance. With a basic jeep and limited service resources, we pulled out the first position in our category (1611 cc -3010 cc Diesel) and an overall second position. At the end of the day, I feel it was a healthy and a strong competition and we are extremely joyous to be on the RFC India 2017 podium.”
